DevExpress v15.2 Released – What’s is new this version?

 

I have attended DevExpress Webinars consecutively in last few days and there was lots of features they included in the newer version v15.1. All the technology persons Mehul, Don, Julian and Bukcnall described all these features with much clearly and I found that they are much valuable to increase the productivity of the developers. Here are list of webinars related to DevExpress v15.2 build:

Mehul Harry Don Wibier	v15.2: What's New for DevExtreme & HTML5	03-Dec-2015
Julian M Bucknall Paul Usher	v15.2: What's New for Reporting and Dashboards	02-Dec-2015
Julian M Bucknall Paul Usher	v15.2: What's New for Windows Developers	01-Dec-2015
Mehul Harry Don Wibier	v15.2: What's New for ASP.NET Developers	30-Nov-2015

The amazing thing that I liked most is “Grid-Based Report Generation”. This release ships with a new WinForms Grid-based report generation option. With only a few lines of code, you can invoke the DevExpress WinForms Report Designer from the Grid Control and create reports based on its data.

 

Currently I am working with WinForms controls so I found few new control in the WinForms control suite:

• Diagram Control
• Date Editor & Calendar Control
• Excel Data Source
• Ring/Line Animations
• Tabbed Form
• Tabbed Pane Control
• Toolbox Control
• Clipboard Management
  
  the amazing thing they have included is Clipboard management. It was the desired functionality for us because every time we need to write custom code to implement this functionality. Before that it was not easy to copy the Grid Control content to another program including the formatting rules e.g. cell colors. Check this out.
  
  

More interesting controls also included in the ASP.NET WebForms suite also:

Card View Control:

 It is packed with new features like Batch Editing, Conditional Formatting, Export to PDF, XLS, XLSX and RTF Formats, Selected Records Export, Conditional Formatting Export, Header Panel, Total Summary, Endless Paging, Date Range Header Filter, Ellipsis with tooltips in cell texts, Design-Time Card Layout Editor allows you to build a Microsoft Outlook inspired Contacts View with integrated data shaping and editing capabilities.

ASP.NET QueryBuilder Control

Right now this control is available in CTP, but this DevExpress ASP.NET Query Builder allows you to visually construct SQL queries and return a string containing a SELECT statement. It is enriched with cool features.



This control can automatically obtain and display database schema within the QueryBuilder's UI. It has ability to visually edit 'WHERE', 'ORDER BY' and 'GROUP BY' query clauses. Relationship management is required feature for a query builder and they have availed and relationships between tables are automatically resolved based on foreign keys in the control. Along this we can see the Query results preview also.

There are many more features included in ASPxGridView – Responsive Layout, Adaptive layout, export with Format Conditions, Scheduler Control and others. XAF, DevExtreme & HTML5, Reporting, WPF, CodeRush.

The main improvement what DevExpress bring to the Developer community is that they have improved the performance of the control on each platform. Performance is main concern while using the third party controls and within this release they have focused on it also.

Enjoy new Office 2016 style themes also.

The complete features details are available about the DevExpress v15.2 here. Hope this will help you explorer amazing fast DevExpress controls.

How to use ValueConverter (Decimal Converter) during data binding with control?

Scenario:

While using DevExpress WPF control, sometimes it requires to convert the binding value according to the control’s property. In that case we need use the Value Converters in this case.
Let we require to bind the SpinEdit WPF control edit value property with some object property which require to be converted to decimal value. To do that we need to follow below steps:

1. Create a custom converter class which implements IValueConverter to convert the value to the decimal.
   

   namespace DevExWpfApp
   {
       public class DecimalConverter : IValueConverter
       {
           public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
           {
               return System.Convert.ToDecimal(value);
           }
   
           public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
           {
               throw new NotImplementedException();
           }
       }
   }
   

   
   
2. Now use it in the XAML by declare it as resources and then call it as below:
   
   

   <UserControl.Resources>
   <local:DecimalConverter x:Key="DecimalConverter"/>
   </UserControl.Resources>
   
      <dxe:SpinEdit EditValue="{Binding Entity.MaxValue, Converter={StaticResource DecimalConverter}" />

Install .NET Framework 3.5 in Windows 8 and 10

Windows 8 and 10 comes with .NET framework 4 or higher pre-installed, but there are lots of applications require the .NET framework v3.5 installed to install on these newer version of operating systems. These applications will not run unless you will install the required version of .NET framework. When you try to run any such sort of applications then Windows 8 and 10 will prompt you to download and install .NET framework 3.5 from the Internet. However, this will take a lot of time.

Source: MSDN article.
Below are the steps to enable .NET framework 3.5:

1. Go to Settings. Choose Control Panel then choose Programs.
   
   
   
2. Click Turn Windows features on or off, and the user will see window as image below.
   
   
   
   
   
   You can enable this feature by click on .NET Framework 3.5 (include .NET 2.0 and 3.0) select it and click OK. After this step, it will download the entire package from internet and install the .NET Framework 3.5 feature.

You can save your time and install .NET Framework 3.5 from the Windows 8 and 10 installation media respectively. This method is much faster and does not even require an Internet connection.
Follow below steps to install .NET Framework 3.5 in Windows 8 and 10 using DISM:

1. Bring your installation media to prepare installation either it is DVD or ISO image. If you are using ISO image then mount it using software e.g. Power ISO, DAEMON Tools so then you will be able to access the files for the installation.
   Packages are located in the drive letter: \sources\sxs directory.
2. Open CMD.EXE with Administrative Privileges. Right click on the start button (or press “Win + X”) to popup the system menu. There you will find a menu item titled “Command Prompt (Admin)”. Click on this to launch the command prompt in admin mode.
   
3. Run the following command and hit Enter.
   Dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /All /Source:E:\sources\sxs /LimitAccess
   
   
   Please make sure to change the source path:
   e.g.
   If you have Windows setup at “D:” drive, replace “E:” with “d:”
   If you have Windows setup at “F:\Win10Setup” folder path, replace “x:” with “f:\Win10Setup”
   When run from the command prompt, it will start installing the .NET framework. It will take a while to complete the whole process. Once done, restart your system for the changes to take effect.

Details on command line parameters of DISM:

• /Online targets the operating system you're running (instead of an offline Windows image).
• /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFx3 specifies that you want to enable the .NET Framework 3.5.
• /All enables all parent features of the .NET Framework 3.5.
• /LimitAccess prevents DISM from contacting Windows Update.
• /Source specifies the location of the files needed to restore the feature (in this example, the x:\sources\sxs directory).

After completion of this process .NET Framework 3.5 feature enabled. Restart and then you good to go for the installation of your application.

How to enable required field validator in a particular row of GridView?

Scenario:
In some cases editing is enabled on the selected row when you doing batch editing in ASP.NET GridView or DevExpress Grid Control. During edit operation we need to validate only these selected rows editor controls so that it will not block or validated another rows. It require to enable only associated cell validators in the editing rows.
Solution:
Let we have a checkbox in each row to select the editing row to enable the validator controls. Then we have to follow below steps:
First you need to add server event on Check Box control of Change event fire.

<asp:CheckBox ID="chkbox" runat="server" OnCheckedChanged="chkbox_CheckedChanged"    AutoPostBack="true"/>

Then fire of checked event of Checkbox you need to enable/disable RequiredFieldValidator server control.

protected void chkbox_CheckedChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
   CheckBox chkbox= sender as CheckBox;
   GridViewRow currentRow = chkbox.NamingContainer as GridViewRow;
   RequiredFieldValidator rfv = grdCustomer.Rows[currentRow.RowIndex]
                                      .FindControl("ValReqED") as RequiredFieldValidator;
   if (chkCustomer.Checked)
   {
      rfv .Enabled = true;
   }
}

ASPX:

<asp:GridView ID="grdView" AutoGenerateColumns="false" BorderWidth="0" OnRowCommand="grdView_RowCommand" runat="server" CssClass="table">
    <Columns>
        <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Save It">
            <ItemTemplate>
                <asp:CheckBox ID="chkbox" runat="server" AutoPostBack="true" OnCheckedChanged="chkbox_CheckedChanged"/>
            </ItemTemplate>
        </asp:TemplateField>
        <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Expiration Date">
            <ItemTemplate>
                <asp:TextBox ID="txtExpirationDate" style="padding:12px 5px;" placeholder="(mm/dd/yyyy)" CssClass="datepiker" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
                <asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="ValReqExpD" Enabled="false" Display="Dynamic" runat="server" ErrorMessage="Expiry Date cannot be Blank." ControlToValidate="txtExpirationDate"></asp:RequiredFieldValidator>
                <asp:RegularExpressionValidator Display="Dynamic" ID="ValRegExpD" runat="server" ControlToValidate="txtExpirationDate" ErrorMessage="Enter a valid Expiry Date ." ValidationExpression="([1-9]|0[1-9]|1[012])([-/.])([1-9]|0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])([-/.])(19[5-9][0-9]|20[0-4][0-9])">
                    <b>Enter a valid Renewal Date</b>
                </asp:RegularExpressionValidator><br />
                <asp:CompareValidator ID="ValCmpSD" Display="Dynamic" runat="server" ControlToCompare="txtEffectiveDate" ControlToValidate="txtExpirationDate" ErrorMessage="Expiry Date should be greater than Effective date" Operator="GreaterThan" Type="Date"></asp:CompareValidator>
            </ItemTemplate>
        </asp:TemplateField>
    </Columns>
</asp:GridView>

Healthy eye tips for IT professionals to keep their vision correct

Looking at current trend of advancements in technology, spending long hours in front of television, computers & mobile screens is becoming part of life style today. But in IT industry, we have to spend most part of our day in front of the computer screen to do our work. In all of this daily routine we forget about one of the most important parts of our body, the eyes. The ones that itch from sheer exhaustion and burn tirelessly after the end of a really long day. This can lead to eyes and vision related problems in future.

We might not feel the need to exercise your eyes because well, there aren't any immediate symptoms or signs of weak or tired eyes but if we want to guard our self from hazy spots and blurry vision in the future, then we suggest you exercise them as often as possible. And the eye workout is that you can do it at any given time of the day and all we need are a few minutes to avoid future problem with that part which required to do job for the living.

Here are the few EYE care tips

Ø After every 20 to 30 minutes of work, look at a distant object and blink several times. This will help in better focusing and relaxation of eye muscles

Ø Blink frequently. People tend to reduce blink rate while working on computer. This can lead to dry eyes. Avoid staring at screens & objects for long.

Ø Exercise your eyes at frequent intervals. Eye exercise is simple. All you need to do is blink several times, then close your eyes and roll them in clockwise and anti-clockwise direction. While doing this, breathe deeply but slowly and open your eyes slowly after doing this.

Ø Rub your palms against each other till they become warm. Cover your eyes with your warm palms for a minute. You will experience soothing effect in your eyes.

Ø Splashing water on your face during breaks can keep you refreshed. This also helps in cleaning and cooling your eyes.

Ø A few minutes of walk during breaks will refresh your body and mind. It is also good for your eyes as walking increases blood supply to your eyes.

Ø Position the monitor and lights in such a manner that glare from the screen is minimum. 

Few tips are simple Yoga that help to avoid eye problems. We've put together few simple yoga exercises that that will help ease out overused muscles, reduce tension in the face and eyes and help your eyes focus.

Source - Yoga for eyes
here are few yoga exercises that that will help ease out overused muscles, reduce tension in the face and eyes and help your eyes focus.

• Blink - Open your eyes wide and then quickly blink about 10 times. Now, close your eyes for about 20 seconds and repeat this exercise four more times. The human eye should blink about 25 times in one minute. However, many of us don't, especially when we're focusing on something on our computer or smartphone. This exercise helps your eye nourish itself, relaxes the eye muscles and prevent dry eyes.
• Palming - If you've gone for yoga classes at any point in time you'll be familiar with this one. Rub your palms together till they feel warm. Then place them on your eyes and hold the position till your palm feels warm. Concentrate on something and relax. This exercise is another form of relaxation which is something your eyes could use, especially after a long day at work.
• Sideways & Rotation - So now you want to stretch your eye muscles. Move your eyes slowly from side to side and then all the way around in a circle. If you find that difficult, then use your finger and move it in a circle, and let your eyes follow. Make sure your neck doesn't move and repeat both those exercises about 20 times.
• Sarvangna Asanaor the shoulder stand - This exercise doesn't just help your eyes but your brain as well. Lie down on a mat and using your arms, life your body waist downwards in the air so that your legs are straight and toes point outwards. This pose stimulates blood circulation in brain and optic nerve. You can also lay on your back and life your legs upward, as high as you can go. This exercise increases blood circulation to the eyes, brain, ears and nose, thereby improving their functioning. This pose also helps you detoxify and maximize the performance of all the other organs.

         

• Bhramari Pranayama - Also known as the humble bee breath, this exercise is really calming and can drown down the unnecessary noise in your head, making you feel relaxed with just a few breaths. Sit on the floor cross-legged or however you feel comfortable. Now place your fingers over your eyes horizontally. Exhale and when you inhale make a bee like buzzing sound. Make sure you apply very little pressure on the eyeball and keep your lips sealed.

Some more helpful exercises: Yoga for Eyes: Improve Eyesight Naturally

Free Programming Books

There was thread on Stackoverflow which contribute the list of free programming books. The Original Source for these free books as below:
 List of freely available programming books
Further I found a nice maintained list on GitHub – Free programming books and subset of the list is here:

Parallel Programming

• High Performance Computing (PDF, ePUB) - Charles Severance & Kevin Dowd
• High Performance Computing Training (LLNL materials)
• High-Performance Scientific Computing (class lectures and slides)
• How to Write Parallel Programs
• Introduction to High-Performance Scientific Computing - Victor Eijkhout
• Introduction to Parallel Computing - Blaise Barney
• Is Parallel Programming Hard, And, If So, What Can You Do About It? - Paul E. McKenney
• Programming on Parallel Machines; GPU, Multicore, Clusters and More - Norm Matloff
• The OpenCL Programming Book

Partial Evaluation

• Partial Evaluation and Automatic Program Generation - (PDF) Jones, Gomard and Sestoft

Professional Development

• Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman - David H. Hoover and Adewale Oshineye
• Confessions of an IT Manager (RedGate, By Phil Factor)
• Don't Just Roll the Dice (PDF) (RedGate, By Neil Davidson)
• How to Do What You Love & Earn What You’re Worth as a Programmer (Leanpub, By Reginald Braithwaite)
• What I've Learned From Failure (Leanpub, By Reginald Braithwaite)
• Why programmers work at night (Leanpub, By Swizec Teller)

Programming Paradigms

• Introduction to Functional Programming (class lectures and slides)
• Type Theory and Functional Programming

Regular Expressions

• Learn Regex The Hard Way - Zed. A. Shaw
• The Bastards Book of Regular Expressions: Finding Patterns in Everyday Text - Dan Nguyen
• The 30 Minute Regex Tutorial - Jim Hollenhorst
• RexEgg

Reverse Engineering

• Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering - Andrew "bunnie" Huang
• Reverse Engineering for Beginners (PDF) - Dennis Yurichev
• BIOS Disassembly Ninjutsu Uncovered 1st Edition (PDF) - Darmawan Salihun

Security

• Crypto 101 - Crypto for everyone
• Handbook of Applied Cryptography
• How to deal with Passwords
• Intrusion Detection Systems with Snort
• OpenSSL Cookbook
• OWASP Top 10 for .NET Developers
• Security Engineering
• CryptoParty Handbook

Software Architecture

• Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures - Roy Thomas Fielding
• Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review
• Data-Oriented Design
• Domain Driven Design Quickly
• DSL Engineering: Designing, Implementing and Using Domain-Specific Languages - Markus Voelter
• Essential Skills for Agile Development
• Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge
• How to Design Programs
• How to Write Unmaintainable Code
• Kanban and Scrum - making the most of both
• Kanban for skeptics (Leanpub, by Nick Oostvogels)
• Methods and Techniques for the Design and Implementation of Domain-Specific Languages - Zef Hemel
• Naked objects - Richard Pawson
• NASA Manager Handbook for Software Development (PDF)
• NASA Software Measurement Handbook
• OAuth - The Big Picture
• Object-Oriented Reengineering Patterns
• Patterns and Practices: Application Architecture Guide 2.0
• Patterns of Software: Tales from the Software Community (PDF)
• Practicing Domain-Driven Design - Scott Millett
• Programming Reliable Systems (Joe Armstrong's PhD thesis) (PDF)
• Scrum and XP from the Trenches
• Seamless Object-Oriented Software Architecture (PDF)
• Software Architecture (PDF)
• Software Engineering for Internet Applications
• Web API Design
• Your API Is Bad (Leanpub, by Paddy Foran)

Standards

• UNIX - The POSIX Standard - IEEE Std 1003.1
• Linux Standard Base

Theoretical Computer Science

• An Introduction to the Theory of Computation
• Building Blocks for Theoretical Computer Science - Margaret M. Fleck
• Category Theory for Computing Science (PDF)
• Homotopy Type Theory: Univalent Foundations of Mathematics (PDF)
• Introduction to Computer Science - Prof. Subhashis Banerjee, IIT Delhi
• Introduction to Computing
• Introduction to Theory of Computation (PDF) - Anil Maheshwari and Michiel Smid
• Models of Computation - John E. Savage
• Network Science
• Practical Foundations for Programming Languages, Preview - Robert Harper
• Principles of Programming Languages - Scott F. Smith
• Programming and Programming Languages - Shriram Krishnamurthi
• Programming in Martin-Löf's Type Theory - Bengt Nordstroem
• Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation (2nd Edition)
• Semantics with Applications: A Formal Introduction - Hanne Riis Nielson, Flemming Nielson
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
• Theory of Computation - Sandeep Sen, IIT Delhi
• Think Complexity - Allen B. Downey

Web Performance

• Book of Speed by Stoyan Stefanov
• High Performance Browser Networking by Ilya Grigorik
• Mature Optimization by Carlos Bueno

Slogans of Technology Companies

A slogan is a statement of such merit about a product or service that is worthy of continuous repetitive advertising; is worthwhile for the public to remember; and is phrased in such a way that the public is likely to remember it. It makes impact on customers about your brand name. It is an advertising tag-line or phrase that advertisers create to visually expresses the importance and benefits of their product.

 

Here is list of slogans with the company name which have their brand name in Technology market.

Company Name	Slogan
3M	Innovation
3PARdata Inc.	Serving Information. Simply.
Accenture	High Performance. Delivered.
Acorn Computers	No slogan
Adobe	Better by Adobe.
Affiliated Computer Services	People Making Technology Work
Agere Systems	How Communication Happens
Aluria Software	Security Made Simple
Amazon.com	… and You’re Done
Ameritech	In a World of Technology, People Make the Difference.
Apple Computer	Think different.
Apple Computer	The power to be your best.
Apple Computer	Think outside the box.
Astaro	Network Assurance
AT&T	Reach out and touch someone.
AT&T	The world’s networking company.
AT&T	Your World. Delivered
ATG Design Services	Circuit Design for the RF Impaired
ATI Technologies	Get In the Game
BAE Systems	Innovation for a Safer World
Ball Corporation	The Leader in Small Space and Rocket Systems
BellSouth	Listening, Answering
Blackhawk	Powering DSP Development
BMW	The Ultimate Driving Machine
Bose Corporation	Better Sound Through Research
BP Microsystems	Setting the Standard in Device Programming
Buy.com	The Internet Superstore
Cadence	How Big Can You Dream?
Cingular Wireless	Raising the Bar
Cirrus Logic	Leading the Digital Entertainment Revolution
Cisco Systems	Empowering the Internet generation.
Cisco Systems	This is the Power of the Network. Now.
CNET	The source for computing and technology.
Compaq (HP)	Inspiration Technology
Cypress Semiconductor	Driving the Communication Revolution
Datel (C&D Tech)	Innovation and Excellence
Dell Computer	Easy as Dell.
Dell Computer	Get More out of Now
D-Link	Building Networks for People
Dow Corning	We Help You Invent the Future
DuPont	The Miracles of Science
EM Research	The ultimate source for miniature frequency synthesizers
Emerson Electric Company	Consider It Solved
Ericsson	Taking You Forward
ExxonMobil	Taking on the world’s toughest energy challenges
Fiber-Span, LLC	RF On Fiber
Fujitsu	The Possibilities are Infinite
General Dynamics	Strength On Your Side
General Electric	Imagination at Work
GigaLane	Innovation and Excellence in RF & Microwave
Globe Telecom	Making great things possible
Hewlett-Packard	Invent
Hitachi	Inspire the Next
Honeywell	We are Honeywell
I.F. Engineering Corp	Your challenge is our progress
IBM	We Make IT Happen
IDT	Powering What’s Next
IFI	The Power of Choice
Infineon	Keep on Thinking
Infosys	Powered by Intellect Driven by Values
Intel	Intel Inside
Intersil	Technology at the Speed of Life
IRobot	Business Mechanisms to Accelerate Change
ITT	Engineered for Life
JRC	You Don’t Need Wires to Communicate
Keithley	A Greater Measure of Confidence
Kodak	A Virtual World of Live Pictures
Konica Minolta	The Essentials of Imaging
Linksys	At Linksys – We are making connectivity easier
Linx Technologies	Wireless Made Simple
Lockheed Martin	We Never Forget Who We’re Working For
Lucent Technologies	Creating value through true convergence.
MegaPhase	Our Customers Connect With Us™
Micrel	The Infinite Bandwidth Company
Micron	The Future of Memory
Microsoft	Your potential. Our passion.
Microsoft	Where do you want to go today?
Mitsubishi Semiconductor	Changes for the Better
Motorola	Hello. Moto
muRata	Innovator in Electronics
mWAVE Industries, LLC	Your Partner In Antenna Technology
MySQL	To Make Superior Data Management Available and Affordable for All
National Semiconductor	The Sight & Sound of Information
NEC Corporation	Empowered by Innovation
Nintendo	Born to play
Nokia	Connecting People
Nortel Networks	Business Without Boundaries
Novell	Software for the Open Enterprise
NVIDIA	The way it’s meant to be played
Olympus Corporation	Your Vision, Our Future
Optus1	Yes
Oracle	Information Driven:
Orbital Sciences Corporation	The Leader in Small Space and Rocket Systems
Panasonic	Ideas for Life
Peregrine Systems	Evolve Wisely
PerkinElmer	Precisely
Philips	Sense and Simplicity
Pioneer Rocketplane	Permitting Travel to Space, Travel in Space, and Travel Through Space
Plantronics	Sound Innovation
PMC-Sierra	Accelerating The Broadband Revolution
Pragma	Operate at Your Optimum
RCAT Systems	You push the limits. We measure it.
RF Bites	Helping RF Designers one Bite at a time
RF Cafe	Now that’s Progressive
RF Cafe	A Disruptive Web Presence
RF Cafe	Your Onramp to the Information Superhighway
RF Cafe	Specialty Materials That Make Our World
Rohde & Schwarz	Pushing Limits
Samsung Electronics	Imagine
Sprint Nextel Corporation	Yes you can
ST Microelectronics	More Intelligence Solutions
Sun Microsystems	The Network Is The Computer
Symbol Technologies	The Enterprise Mobility Company
Texas Instruments	Technology for Innovators
Thor Labs	Photonics in the Fast Lane
Toshiba	Committed to People, Committed to the Future.
Unisys	We Make It Happen
United Technologies Corporation	This is Momentum
Verizon Wireless	Can You Hear Me Now? Good.
vidaRF	Simple Solutions for Complex Connections
Vodafone	How Are You?
Vodafone	Make the Most of Now
Wyse	Global Leader in Thin Computing
Xerox	The Document Company
Xilinx	The Programmable Logic Company
XMA Corporation	When Performance Matters
Digital Global Information Systems	Our Focus - Your Growth!